Capture Screengrabs with Snag-It

If you have a need to capture screens — especially scrolling web pages with videos or Flash elements that are difficult to capture accurately with web browser print features, you should try SnagIt from TechSmith. A new version (version 10) was just released this week. You can download the 30 day trial here: http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp. I have been using this software for years and it has been well worth the $24.95 upgrade pricetag ($49 if you're a first-time purchaser).

The new "All-in-One" capture profile makes it so easy to capture exactly what you want on screen. Just open SnagIt, select "All-in-One", hit the red Capture button, and click on the window you want to capture. SnagIt automatically detects whether the page has vertical or horizontal scrolling and shows an overlay with arrows indicating the direction of scroll. Click the arrow and the capture begins. Then print the capture or save it to jpg, png, or any number of formats.

Here's a capture of the 4Next homepage which has a Flash header and several simultaneous animated elements:

I have captured a sequence of screengrabs as jpgs and then used Adobe Acrobat Professional Edition to assemble the jpgs into a PDF that shows the order of appearance online. Then I have used Acrobat to annotate the PDF with changes, feedback, or notations.

Another nice feature of SnagIt, that was added for version 9, is the "organize images" function that creates a handy archive of all the images you have captured with SnagIt. Just click on "Organize Images" to see thumbnails of all your captures.

This program does a whole lot more, but even these basic features are so useful you have to try it out!